


Two Halves of A Whole

by allonsysilvertongue



Category: Hayffie - Fandom, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Hayffie AU, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 12:58:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3729832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsysilvertongue/pseuds/allonsysilvertongue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the tumblr prompt - soulmate au where instead of your soulmates first words to you written on your skin it’s their last words you ever hear them say so you don’t know who your soulmate is until you lose them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't think anyone wants me to write another fic in which one of them dies, so I'm going to tweak that au to say "... you don't know who your soul mate is until you're about to lose them."

 

** 46 ** ** th ** **Games**

Haymitch Abernathy turned twelve that morning and he queued in line to take his first tasserae. The first slip of paper with his name written across it was added into the Reaping Bowl, an act that will ultimately seal his fate in four years' time as the bowl accumulate more and more of the papers bearing his name.

At the other side of Panem, seven years old Effie Trinket woke up screaming.

"Daddy," she looked up with tear stained face as her father rushed in. "There's something funny on my body. It's ugly. I'm ugly, daddy!"

Her father lifted her nightgown and what he saw made him suck in a breath.

"You're both lucky and cursed," Stephen Trinket said as he gathered his daughter in his arms. He sat on her bed against the headboard, rocking the upset young girl back and forth.

"Why?"

"See here," he traced the words etched onto her daughter's pale skin. "These are the words of your… soul mate. Not everyone in this world has a soul mate – you're lucky in that sense."

"What's a soul mate?"

"It's a very special person," he tried to explain. "It's someone who will be your better half; someone who will complement your personality and characteristics. Your soul mate is someone who will fill your life with joy and laughter, hopefully, and who will stand by you in hard times. He'll make your life whole and complete. It's someone special that you should ideally spend you entire life with. It's a love that will nestle in your soul."

"Like a boyfriend?" the young girl frowned, trying hard to keep up.

Her father smiled at her innocence.

"So much more."

"Is mummy your soul mate, daddy?"

"No, darling, she's not," he kissed her brow. "But she's someone I've found some happiness with."

"I can't wait to meet my soul mate," she grinned only to see her father's eyes dim with sadness.

"I cannot wait to meet this boy of yours, too," he said. "But these words… Euphemia, you must know, it is  _important_ that you know this – these are the boy's last words."

The joy of discovering that there was a person out there whose soul fit yours like pieces of a puzzle was usually short lived, overshadowed by a singular fact.

"Darling, you'll only know who he is when you lose him. You wouldn't know otherwise, and sometimes, he may be your soul mate, but you may not be his."

Effie wanted to be as smart as her father always said she was but she was having difficulties understanding it all so instead, she asked, "what does it say on my skin?"

Her father traced the words on Effie's ribcage with reverence, and then quietly, he read it out to his daughter, "I need the force field."

** 50 ** ** th ** **Games**

"He is not in a very good place. That wound will kill him," her father commented, leaning back in his seat as they watched the Games.

Effie was too restless to sit so she stood in front of the television instead biting her lips with worry as she track Haymitch's movement. This was Effie's first games. Perhaps it was the fact that this was the long awaited Second Quarter Quell or maybe her family had finally deemed her old enough but for the first time, Effie was allowed to watch the Games in its entirety, not just the Tribute Parade like every other year.

On screen, Haymitch Abernathy was clutching on to his stomach. He was doubled over in pain as he scrambled up the cliff, running as far away as he could from the District One tribute.

"He's running away, perhaps he will have a chance," Effie pointed out, hoping that that was the case.

"She will win," her mother stated with confidence. "An underdog district has never won over a Career district. Everybody knows that. It's over for him. He might as well have stopped running. It's only a matter of time."

Haymitch didn't think it was over because he was still running, staggering on his feet as the blood dripped between his fingers. He stumbled and remained on the ground, panting only to look up to see something shimmering in the distance. His eyes flashed as if a sudden brilliance had struck him.

"Force field," he breathed out. "I need the force field."

His words were spoken quietly to himself but the camera caught it all.

Effie's father jerked upright at the same time that Effie's hand flew to her sides where the same words were etched into her skin. It had become very much a part of her and to hear someone else, a stranger no less, utter those same words sent a chill down her spine.

"The force field," Haymitch muttered again, pushing himself off towards the cliff.

"Father?" Effie turned around, a look of alarm had settled over her features. "Daddy?"

"It's him," her mother spat. "That boy is your soul mate – a district ruffian. It is a relief, isn't it, Stephen, that he will never be with our daughter? Imagine the gossips! Oh, but this is delightful! He just said his last words which means that girl will win, she will be crowned Victor! I do possess the gift of foresight, it appears. I placed my bets on the girl just this morning."

"Mother!" Effie cried in dismay.

"Oh, there is no need for this tantrum, Euphemia! You have no need for a soul mate. Your father and I are doing just fine in our marriage and we are not each other's soul mates, I hope you know. It is truly not the end of the world without a soul mate. It's a rubbish concept."

Effie said nothing. Her father had never found his soul mate and as far as she knew, her mother did not have any words imprinted on her skin. Her parents were married and they had been married for fifteen years but she was not oblivious to the constant disagreement going on between them or the divorce they nearly had when she was eight.

Stephen held his hand out to her and Effie took it gladly, snuggling next to her father as they watch the Games together. It was at that moment that his loyalty shifted and for the first time in his life, he rooted for District Twelve, for the sake of his daughter.

** Rebellion **

District Thirteen's lights would go off in every single compartment every day at 2200 hours sharp. Haymitch lay in the dark, awake and unable to sleep, mindlessly tracing the spot on the right side of his ribcage where the words had first appeared to him when he was twenty-six. That was sixteen years ago, the year Effie Trinket became Twelve's escort.

His mother had told him of the stories. The lucky ones would have written words etched on their skin. It was not known when it would appear – some at birth, some much later in life – but it was widely believed that the words would only appear when the person's soul mate did an act that would set the wheels in motion; either they cross each other's path or they seal their fate that would lead to their demise.

Haymitch had listened to the stories as a child, in awe and enraptured. It was someone else's story but never his. He never thought it would appear to him.

He knew the words; what it said and how it was against his skin without having to look at it.  _I trusted you and you left me._  Anyone could have told him that they trusted him. It was so general but the second limb was more specific.

Haymitch had not met her yet and he was not sure if he wanted to. What was the point of meeting her only to lose her? Those last words bore such heavy connotations. Whoever she was, she should not have trusted him. It was foolish. Perhaps, it was for the best that they had not crossed paths.

The movement outside the compartment jostled him out of his thoughts and a second later, the door slid open. Plutarch poked his head in.

"They found her, Haymitch. She's here, down in the hospital wing."

His movement was instantaneous. Haymitch pushed himself off the bed, all creaky bones and aching muscles, and hurried after Plutarch so much so that at one point, he managed to overtake the man and reach the hospital wing first.

Two doctors and several nurses surrounded a bed where a thin, frail woman lay. He could hear her voice, hoarse and rough, screaming for them to get away.

"Sweetheart," he called out once he reached her bedside.

He held her hand in his, squeezing it to get her attention.

Effie Trinket was unrecognisable except for her eyes. Haymitch would know her eyes anywhere. Although this time, the usual sparkle of determination was gone as her blue eyes darted at each faces, frantic and fearful.

"You're gonna be okay, Effie," he said but he wasn't sure about that himself. Her tattered clothes was covered with dried blood, her leg was bent at an odd angle and there were bruises and open wound covering her skin. "You got to be."

Effie was a lot of things – odd, bossy, difficult and bitchy – but he had known her for nearly sixteen years and in that time, they had certainly developed a friendship of sorts. She was a familiar face; a face he would see  _every_  year without fail. True, he used to detest it but that feeling had long eroded when he realised that there was no point to it. She was a constant in his life and by now, with Chaff and Mags dead, Effie was the person he had known the longest, nearly as long as he knew his own mother.

"Calm down, sweetheart. They're doctors and nurses. They're not gonna hurt you. They're going to treat you, make you better. You need to stop fightin' them," he held her hand tight. Effie was gasping for breath as she trashed on the bed. "You need to let them help you. They won't hurt you, Effs, you have to trust me."

His voice or maybe it was his words, must have broken through the haze because Effie's head snapped towards him. Recognition, relief, horror and resentment flashed through her eyes. She grabbed the collar of his jumpsuit and with surprising strength, pulled him forward.

"I trusted you," she hissed. "You left me for dead! I  _trusted_  you and you left me."

Haymitch released her hand in shock, as if she had burnt him, and reeled back, staring at her in abject horror.

"No," he breathed.

Her heart monitor started beeping frantically. The nurses pushed him aside to get to her.

"Effie," her name spilled from his lips as he watched them wheeled her away to the operating theatre.

"Haymitch? Are you alright?" Plutarch touched his shoulder.

"It's her," he answered, covering the words on his side. "I found her."

"I told you we would."

"She's going to die."

 


	2. Chapter 2

** Rebellion **

Effie's room in the hospital wing had as much personality as his compartment. It was metallic grey and the walls were bare; no drawings or photographs of a scenery framed on the wall. Haymitch sat by her bed, watching the rise and fall of her chest just as he had done for the past five days.

He had been so sure that she was going to die – for her to be alive was unbelievable – because all the stories his mother told him as a child did not have a happy ending. The discovery of a soul mate was usually followed by death. The stories were partly true, he supposed, because Effie had died, twice. Her heart had stopped beating on two different occasions and Haymitch had watched the medical team scrambling to resuscitate her.

That was also how he knew they were inexplicably and intricately linked. The words on his ribcage would burn each time her heart stop. Right now, it had tapered off to an irritating itch, reminding him of its existence.

"Why are you here?"

Haymitch jerked in surprise at the sound of her voice. It was barely audible amongst the beeping of the machines in her room.

"Just visiting," he shrugged as he stood awkwardly at the foot of her bed, unsure of his welcome. "Are you in pain?"

He mentally slapped himself for that question. Of course she was.

"I don't want you here."

"I'll get the doctor," he said at the same time. "Tell him you're awake."

Over the course of the next few days and weeks, Effie continued to recover. Haymitch would drop by her hospital room and watch her from the glass window, never coming in unless she was asleep. She would see him sometimes from the window and they would look at each other but she never did beckon him in. It was probably for the better. He couldn't get the memory of her blazing eyes, spitting those last words written on his skin out of his mind.

The whole revelation was a conundrum to him. He never once thought Effie would be the one. He always thought it was a faceless, nameless person but now that he knew, he wondered if he was hers. He didn't really think he was or she probably didn't know. He was still alive after all which meant that his last words had not yet been uttered.

But he had died…. Haymitch had read his files. He had lost so much blood from the axe wound that when they extracted him from the arena, just like Effie, his heart had stopped beating while he was on the hovercraft on the way to the hospital in the Capitol. The doctors managed to start it again and replaced the blood he lost.

He didn't understand how it worked, and the more he thought about it, the more pronounced his headache became. He slammed the pen on the table and pushed the pad containing Katniss' propos away.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked, startling him. There was no 'hello', no preamble. He wondered if prison had changed her this much.

Effie stood at his compartment door with a cane in hand. He pushed his chair back to take a step towards her.

"Are you allowed to be here? Have you been discharged?" he asked. "You walked all the way from the hospital wing…. Why don't you sit down?"

The sight of her limping into his room with a cane made his heart twinge and the guilt to multiply. He had seen her walking around in high heels without a problem and he had often told that she would break those ankles one day but seeing her now…

"It is rude to stare," she commented. His dragged his eyes away from the cane to look at her. "Are you going to answer my question?"

He sighed and dropped heavily on his bed.

"You were supposed to be safe in the Capitol," he answered gruffly. He had never liked explaining himself to anyone but Effie was an exception. It was his fault that she ended up tortured within an inch of her life. "Bringing you with me to Thirteen would have made you a traitor to Snow's eyes, and  _that_  was dangerous. I couldn't risk it. I left you behind thinking that… your citizenship would give you some measure of protection. I was wrong."

Maybe all she needed to hear was him admitting that he was wrong because she nodded. She made no move to get up and leave however, and they sat in silence. Silence wasn't good. Silence meant that his mind would start to wander and he would venture into dangerous territories, asking himself questions to which he had no answer to.

Haymitch blinked as the realisation became crystal clear to him. He remembered his mother's words -  _"it will only appear when someone did something to set the wheels in motion, something that will ensure that one day, they will cross each other's path"_  – and those words had appeared on his skin on the very day that Effie Trinket was appointed as an escort, as District Twelve's escort.

He had only met her a few months later during the first reaping but her appointment as Twelve's escort must have sat in all in motion. It might be possible that the words would not have appeared to him if she had been someone else's escort. He wasn't sure but it all fits.

It was ironic now that he thought about it. Her association to Twelve and to him had given Snow the leverage he needed. It was his fault that Effie was captured and tortured which meant that it was his fault she ended up on that gurney in Thirteen, uttering those words to him. None of this would not have happened if she had not become an escort or if she had been someone else's. There were too many factors in play.

Haymitch snorted.

"Something you find hilarious?" Effie pursed her lips.

"Do you believe in fate?"

His voice was incredulous and cynical.

"What?" she tilted her head in confusion. "That is a poor attempt at small talk."

"Forget I said anythin', sweetheart."

** Post-Rebellion **

Haymitch did not lose Effie, not to death at least. After the war, Effie remained in the Capitol, alive and well, or so he thought. Haymitch, on the other hand, was in considerable pain.

The stories that his mother told him did not take into account the hardship one went through after finding the other half simply because most who found their soulmate lost them to death. There was a kind of pain that could not be put into words; a painful ache in the soul. It was a hollow, throbbing and burning pain felt deep inside that screamed for the soul to be reunited. On the surface, the words on his skin itched on good days and blistered dry on bad days.

Effie called one day, her voice was raspy and soft, every breath was a struggle.

"I need to see you," she said, again without any preamble.

He wondered about her manners and if she no longer cared about them.

"You okay, sweetheart? You don't sound – "

"I've been sick for the past few months. I've seen doctors but they said it's just the flu. I'll get better only to fall sick again. I think… I need to see you."

She came one day just as she said she would. Effie was pale and unhealthy. There were dark circles under her eyes and her movements were slow. Her eyes were dull. She looked like she had aged drastically since the last time he saw her and she certainly looked like the weight of the luggage she was carrying would drag her down.

Without bothering to ask where she planned to stay, Haymitch carried the luggage into his house and set it down on the hallway.

"You sure it's just the flu because I don't think – "

He had turned around only to have her launch herself at him. Haymitch was taken aback by how tight her embrace was. It should hurt, it should suffocate him but all he felt was an ice cool breeze like water over a scalded wound washing over his soul. Haymitch sighed in obvious relief. He held her tighter, pressing her to him, wanting and desperately needing her to soothe that burning pain that had tormented him for nearly a year ever since she left after the war ended.

She must have felt what he was feeling because she whispered, "Please just hold me."

"What's happened to you?"

"I don't know but this… this is calming. Goodness, Haymitch," she shivered. "This is a relief. You're like… You're like a balm."

Haymitch said nothing except to hold her as she asked. When they parted and he took a step back, the change in her was startling. The colour had slowly returned to her cheeks and there were a little sparkle in her eyes. There seemed to be some semblance of life in her once more.

"Look at you… What's going on?" he wondered out loud, brushing his fingers down the side of her face.

Not quite understanding what he meant, Effie ambled her way over to the dirty mirror in his hallway, and in a gesture that was uncharacteristic of her yet again, she wiped the grime with the sleeves of her blouse. Effie stared at her reflection, touching her cheeks in disbelief.

"I feel better."

"You  _look_  better," he snorted. "Not like you're on death's door anymore."

"I have to stay here," Effie said out of the blue. "It's just as I suspected. I  _have_  to stay here with you – "

"Wha - Don't jump the gun here, sweetheart. You have to stay here? Why's that?"

"If I return to the Capitol, I will die. The distance… It will suck the life and the energy out of me, and I will perish."

"What did you say?" he demanded with a frown. Haymitch took a step forward, standing directly behind her.

What she had just told him… That was how he felt on some days as if he simply had no energy to live, as if the life had been sucked out of him. He felt restless and empty, and tired. So very tired all the time.

Effie stared at him through the mirror before she turned slowly to face him.

"This – It might not make sense. You'd think I have completely lost my mind but it hurts… here," she told him quietly, voice cracking a little. Her hand hovered just inches from her chest where her heart was as she dropped her gaze. "It aches. It's reaching out for something… And it's here. It has found what it's looking for right here."

"Your soul?" he queried, needing to clarify just what 'it' meant to her.

"How do you – "

Her eyes snapped up to look at him only to follow the movement of his hand which had unconsciously covered his sides. Her own hand came up to brush her fingers lightly on the right side of her ribcage exactly at the place where he was covering his. The understanding and the implication dawned on her.

"I need the force field," she said, barely above a whisper. "You said those exact words twenty seven years ago during your Games. You were going to die. You were running for your life. I was eleven at that time and I saw it all. I  _heard_  you said those words that had become a part of me and I thought you were going to die."

It was a shock to hear that. He couldn't remember what he said. The pain from the axe was unbearable but he remembered thinking about the force field and he definitely remembered running up the cliff to his last chance of survival.

"No," he breathed, shaking his head. "No. That can't be - let me see it."

Effie hesitated, looking at him to gauge his reaction. His face was frozen and there was not a hint of confusion in his eyes. He seemed to know what she was talking to about – "words", "life" and "die" did not make him question her – so it reinforced her suspicion that the concept of soulmate was not foreign to him either.

Slowly, she reached behind her to unzip her dress. It pooled on the floor around her ankle. Effie shivered and crossed her arms in front of her chest, watching him warily.

Haymitch approached her in a daze. His gaze was fixed on the angry red mark on her sides. The pad of his fingers grazed the words lightly. His touch was gentle which surprised her, and Effie sighed in contentment.

"Does it burn?"

"Not anymore. Your touch…It's cooling."

"It's me," he marvelled, not quite believing it. "I'm yours."

"Yes," she gave him a tired smile but her eyes were bright in the dim hallway. "I've known about it since you won your Games. It appeared on my skin when I was seven."

"I would have been twelve," he nodded, calculating the timeline and seeing it all fit perfectly "I would have had my name in the Reaping Bowl."

"I didn't know how to tell you. I thought I could live without you know and I didn't think it mattered because… nothing happened. For a long while, those words were just there. I could live in the Capitol when you return to Twelve after the Games were over each year. It never felt like this. I didn't know it could react in such a manner. I don't know why -"

"It's because I found you," he surmised, interrupting her. "It's because the link was… sealed," he said for a lack of a better word, "when you came to Thirteen and I found out it was you."

Haymitch tugged his shirt over his head and turned sideways, letting her see the blistered, scalded skin. The skin surrounding the words was red which made them stood out even more.

"Do you remember saying it?" he asked as she traced the words in awe.

Effie paused, trying to remember that day, and then she nodded.

"This is… I never dreamt… My father said that we won't necessarily be each other's soulmate. I just…" she heaved a breath and then for the second time that day, enveloped him in a bone crushing hug. "My father said I was cursed."

Effie sobbed and laughed into his neck, her emotions battling against each other.

"He said I was cursed but I found you! You're here! You're mine and I'm yours."

Those words sent shivers running throughout his body. He touched his sides again just to feel that the itch had gone and the blisters did not hurt as terribly as it did that morning.

"He's right but he's also wrong. It's only a curse," she theorised, her breath warm against his cheek, "if you find each other and do nothing."

Haymitch held her, burying his face against the side of her neck. He inhaled the smell of her skin, committing it to memory.

"I feel… I feel complete!" Effie threw her head back and laughed. "I was miserable in the Capitol. I was unwell and I felt so empty but now…"

There was freedom in finding him and she struggled to put it into words, trying to make him understand. She didn't have to. He was the missing half to her whole and so was she. Whatever she wanted to say, his soul understood it even before his mind did.

"Oh, Haymitch, I'm so…" she never finished her own sentence. Effie pressed her lips to his, causing him to stagger back a step. When he found his footing, he kissed her back, running his tongue on her bottom lip until she parted them. "I feel  _alive!_ "

"You're going to be stuck here with me for the rest of your life and you're laughing? You do realised we're linked to each other?" he crinkled his brows but there was no real mirth in his voice.

He was glad to see her, glad to have her here and he was especially glad to see the strength returning to her.

" _You're_ going to be stuck with  _me_ ," she laughed again. "You said once that was your worst nightmare."

The corner of his lips turned upwards into a rare smile

"We're gonna drive each other mad, sweetheart. You're gonna detest my drinking and the way I leave my clothes on the floor. I'm gonna hate you when you meddle into everything and complain 'bout everything."

"Perfect," she beamed. "It's perfect in its imperfection. Don't you see it? We're meant to complement."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This AU has been such a joy to write so I hope you've enjoyed reading it! Please leave a review, it would mean a lot!


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